“Since 1945, the U.S. has a history of imposing conflicts on other places,” says renowned Indian historian and journalist Vijay Prashad. “I don’t like terms like Vietnam War, Iraq War—these are very ideological ways of understanding history. No, these are U.S.-imposed wars on the Vietnamese and Iraqi people.”

For today’s show, Allen reflects on the history of post-WWII U.S. imperialism with Vijay Prashad and discusses his new book, Washington Bullets: A History of the CIA, Coups, and Assassinations.

Vijay Prashad is a historian, journalist, and commentator. He is the author or editor of many books, most recently Washington Bullets: A History of the CIA, Coups, and Assassinations (LeftWord Books, 2020). He currently serves as executive director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and chief editor of LeftWord Books.

Back in February, Wednesday host Ali Muldrow sat down with poet Tiana Clark to discuss Black burnout. This was pre-pandemic in the U.S., pre-summer protests, and pre-election season, but we think the conversation is just as relevant as ever, so we present it today as a special rebroadcast.

This episode originally aired on February 19, 2020.

The internet has been abuzz about the concept of burnout since the publication of journalist Anne Helen Petersen’s viral article “How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation.” In response, poet Tiana Clark wrote “This is What Black Burnout Feels Like” to highlight the ways in which racism and inherited trauma exacerbate the anxiety of 21st-century life and make the American dream even less accessible to Black folks in the rising generation.

For today’s episode, Ali spends the hour with Tiana Clark to talk about Black burnout, including topics like overwork and hustling in a precarious job market, emotional labor, navigating generational differences, the expenses of self-care, coping with an increasing lack of communal care in our society, and the healing that comes through poetry.

You can read Tiana Clark’s poem “My Therapist Wants to Know about My Relationship to Work” here.

Tiana Clark is the author of the poetry collection I Can’t Talk About the Trees Without the Blood (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018). Her writing has appeared in or is forthcoming from The New Yorker, Poetry Magazine, American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. She teaches creative writing at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville.

Cover image by moritz320 from Pixabay

A recent poll from POLITICO found that 70 percent of Republicans surveyed don’t believe the 2020 election was free and fair, with distrust particularly in the results from swing states like Wisconsin.

Election experts, though, celebrate the 2020 election as a great success and the most secure in U.S. history. Election administrators quickly adapted to the challenges of COVID-19 and a major increase in absentee and mail voting, along with tight budgets, state lawsuits, and public scrutiny.

Today on the show, we learn about the process of election administration and get answers to the most common concerns with Barry Burden from the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and James Young, a former elections administrator in Kentucky who recently went viral on Twitter for speaking out against allegations of voter fraud and highlighting the work of election officials.

Barry Burden is a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and director of the Elections Research Center.

James Young is a regional sales manager at Inclusion Solutions, which provides accessibility resources for business and government, including election officials. Previously, he served as director of elections in Louisville, Kentucky.

Photo credit: “A California poll worker sanitizes a voting booth following its use at a Voter Assistance Center in Davis, CA during the 2020 General Election” by Owen Yancher, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0

As Wisconsin and other states around the country face a new COVID-19 surge, rural hospitals are sounding the alarm.

Today on the show, we take a close look at the pandemic’s impact on rural hospitals and healthcare with journalist Lyle Muller of IowaWatch and Tim Size, executive director of Rural Wisconsin Health Cooperative.

Lyle Muller contributed to Reveal‘s series “Slammed: Rural healthcare and COVID-19,” which is available here.

Cover photo by Vladimir Fedotov on Unsplash

Today, we present a special retrospective show celebrating Esty Dinur’s 25th anniversary of hosting A Public Affair. It’s an hour filled with memorable moments from the archives and live commentary from Esty.

Featured interviews (in order): Joel Beinin, Avraham Balaban, Jeremy Scahill, Vojislav Stojkovic, Judi Bari, Paul DeMain, Melissa Buckles, Guillermo Glen, Clarence Kailin, and Lillian Allen.

All of these interviews are now available in full on SoundCloud. Thanks to WORT news director Chali Pittman for digitizing.

Joel Beinin on the assassination of P.M. Rabin (September 7, 1995)

WORT 89.9FM Madison · A Public Affair from the Archives: Assassination Of P.M. Rabin

Avraham Balaban on growing up on a kibbutz (January 31, 2001)

WORT 89.9FM Madison · A Public Affair from the Archives: Professor Avraham Balaban On Esty Dinur

The day after 9/11 (September 12, 2001)

WORT 89.9FM Madison · A Public Affair from the Archives: The Day After 9.11

Vojislav Stojkovic on the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War (May 1990)

WORT 89.9FM Madison · A Public Affair from the Archives: Correspondent Vojislav Stojkovic

Judi Bari on her bombing and trial (December 3, 1996)

WORT 89.9FM Madison · A Public Affair from the Archives: earth activist Judi Bari

Paul DeMain on news from Indian Country (July 26, 2000)

WORT 89.9FM Madison · A Public Affair from th...

Fascism seems to have risen up zombie-like from the past, but philosopher and political theorist Gabriel Rockhill argues that it’s been with us all along.

Today on the show, Allen traces a counter-history of fascism—including its relationships to liberalism, capitalism, and colonialism and how we understand/misunderstand its role in the U.S.—with Gabriel Rockhill.

Gabriel Rockhill is a professor of philosophy at Villanova University and the founding director of the Critical Theory Workshop (Atelier de Théorie Critique). He is the author or editor of nine books, including Radical History and the Politics of Art (Columbia University Press, 2014), Interventions in Contemporary Thought: History, Politics, Aesthetics (Edinburgh University Press, 2016), Counter-History of the Present: Untimely Interrogations into Globalization, Technology, Democracy (Duke University Press, 2017). He recently published a series of articles about fascism in Counterpunch and Black Agenda Report.

Photo courtesy Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Last night, Gov. Tony Evers announced an executive advisory urging Wisconsinites to stay home as COVID-19 cases surge throughout the state. What can we do to protect ourselves and our communities during this new spike?

Today, we spend the hour with Dr. Malia Jones and Dr. Amanda Simanek—two of the experts behind the popular public outreach campaign Dear Pandemic—about all things COVID-19, including the current spike, staying healthy at this time with SMART guidelines, the importance of using and spreading accurate scientific information, pandemic fatigue and information overwhelm, planning for the holidays this year, and what it will take to finally get on the other side of this pandemic.

Malia Jones is an associate scientist and co-founder of UW–Madison’s Applied Population Laboratory. She is one of the co-founders of Dear Pandemic, a popular public outreach account on social media.

Amanda Simanek is an associate professor of epidemiology at UW–Milwaukee’s School of Public Health and a member of Dear Pandemic’s team of experts.

You can find Dear Pandemic on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and their website. There is a Spanish-language mirror account on Facebook, Querida Pandemia.

Cover image by cromaconceptovisual from Pixabay

Last night, the Dane County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the 2021 county budget and starting tonight, the Madison Common Council will be reviewing city budget proposals for next year.

Today on the show, we get an inside look into these budgets—and the challenges and priorities of each—with Dane County Board chair Analiese Eicher and Madison city alder Sheri Carter.

Cover image by 3D Animation Production Company from Pixabay 

Coming off a weekend of widespread voter celebration, we still can’t help but wonder: why were the pollsters so wrong this year—again?

On today’s show, we do a deep dive into the world of political polling and election forecasting with G. Elliott Morris, data journalist at The Economist.

He and Patty discuss theories for why the polls overestimated Biden support this election cycle, waning trust in pollsters, the phenomenon of the “shy Trump voter,” how polls affect the news, the future of public polling and what could fix it, and why all of this matters to the average American.

G. Elliott Morris is a data journalist at The Economist. He publishes a free weekly newsletter, The Crosstab, and is writing a book about polls and democracy contracted with Norton for publication in fall 2021.

Cover photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

It’s the election week that never sleeps—and neither does our coverage! Today, we examine the election aftermath with two Wisconsin guests. In the first segment, we hear from Tanya McLean, a community organizer who worked to get out the Black and Brown vote in Kenosha.

Then, Ruth Conniff from the Wisconsin Examiner join us to talk about Wisconsin’s pivotal role in the election, dealing with the disappointment of the blue wave that didn’t happen, and what we can expect looking forward under a presumed Biden presidency.

Tanya McLean is executive director of Leaders of Kenosha (LOK) and a community leader organizing and driving programs to demand an end to police brutality and economic and racial justice.

Ruth Conniff is editor-in-chief of the Wisconsin Examiner. She formerly served as editor-in-chief of The Progressive magazine, where she worked for many years from both Madison and Washington, DC.